AK to pick athletes for Kip Keino Classic at National Championships
Ruth Chepng'etich (right) of Kenya Prisons Service leads the pack during the women's 10,000m race at Athletics Kenya National Track and Field Championships at Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani on April 26, 2022.
What you need to know:
- Absa Kip Keino Classic meeting director Barnaba Korir has announced the gate charges for the World Athletics Continental Gold Tour event due for May 7 at Kasarani
- Korir disclosed that participants for men and women’s 10,000m and 400m hurdles alongside men’s 400m will be picked from the national championships that end Friday
- There will be nine core events on card during the Kip Keino Classic; men and women’s hammer throw, women’s long jump, men and women’s 3,000m steeplechase, men and women’s 200m, men’s 100m and men’s pole vault
Athletics Kenya will use the ongoing National Athletics Championships at the Moi International Sports Centre (MISC), Kasarani to pick athletes for specific national events at the Absa Kip Keino Classic.
At the same time, Absa Kip Keino Classic meeting director Barnaba Korir has announced the gate charges for the World Athletics Continental Gold Tour event due for May 7 at Kasarani.
Korir further revealed that the famous Safari Park and Sportsview Hotel, Kasarani will be the event’s official hotels.
Korir disclosed that participants for men and women’s 10,000m and 400m hurdles alongside men’s 400m will be picked from the national championships that end Friday.
Korir explained that the events will be broadcasted live alongside the core and discretionary events during the one-day meeting.
Other National Category events that won’t be relayed live are shot put, 400m women and men’s high jump.
Once again, there will be nine core events on card during the Kip Keino Classic; men and women’s hammer throw, women’s long jump, men and women’s 3,000m steeplechase, men and women’s 200m, men’s 100m and men’s pole vault.
The men and women’s 5,000m, men and women’s 1,500m, men and women’s 800m and men’s javelin throw will fall under the discretionary events.
Korir said that tickets are already on sale on ticketsasa.com. The normal tickets retail at Sh200 while the VIP tickets are going for Sh1,500.
This is the first time the event’s organisers will allow fans into the 60,000-seat arena for the Kip Keino Classic after they were kept away from the 2020 and 2021 edition due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Korir explained that invited athletes in core and discretionary events will reside at Safari Park Hotel while those in national events will put up at Sportsview Hotel.
Meanwhile, three-time Olympic champion Anita Wlodarczyk from Poland will grace this year’s Absa Kip Keino Classic for the first time.
The 36-year-old is arguably the most accomplished women’s hammer thrower in the history of the event, being the only athlete to have won a hat-trick at the Olympics with back-to-back victories at the 2012 London, 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Games.
Wlodarczyk is the only thrower to have won the world title four times and the only other athlete to have retained the world title besides the Cuban legend Yipsi Moreno.
Wlodarczyk claimed her maiden world title at Berlin 2009 before winning back-to-back in Moscow 2013, Beijing 2015 and London 2017.
The four-time European champion also holds the world record in hammer throw of 82.98m, a feat she achieved on August 28, 2016 in Warsaw, Poland.
It’s youthful Katrine Koch Jacobsen from Denmark, who won last year’s women’s hammer throw in 71.09, beating Frenchwoman Alexandra Tavernier to second place in 69.62.
